


Present Tense

by Carrogath



Series: Present Tense [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23471461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrogath/pseuds/Carrogath
Summary: Mercedes tries to make a plan and take charge of her own fate, Dorothea gives bad advice and broods about the future, and somewhere in the midst of it all, they manage to find each other.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Mercedes von Martritz
Series: Present Tense [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756927
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68





	Present Tense

**Author's Note:**

> there's probably a ton of mistakes in this but finished is better than perfect
> 
> also please feel free to leave a comment in this era of social distancing; i don't bite

_This woman has no future._

Dorothea doesn’t remember precisely when the thought first came to her. It couldn’t be when they had met, no—not when all she had were first impressions and ill-begotten rumors whereby to form an opinion, and had reasoned thus: that, whatever noble rank she may have held in the past, Mercedes was now a commoner, but a _lucky_ one who could easily marry her way back into the fold by simple application of her Crest, and consequently whatever concerns about her future that were hounding her would be quickly swept away once she had found an appropriately wealthy suitor and allowed herself to be courted, betrothed, and wed.

Back then, Dorothea would have found herself unsympathetic to—envious of, even—a pretty young woman who seemed to scorn her many inborn gifts in favor of blind personal devotion toward an indifferent goddess. She had thought Mercedes naive, and willfully so. How could she not see the path that had been laid out before her? There had been rumors about her relationship to House Bartels, how they had all died in a tragedy caused by the son of Baron Bartels and the former Lady Martritz, and how the woman and her daughter were plagued by misfortune. How she ended up at Garreg Mach was apparently the result of her mother’s third marriage, this time to a tightfisted merchant who was likely paying for her tuition in the hopes that some young nobleman would fall in love with her and provide an ample windfall to his struggling business. It had baffled her that Mercedes would turn down proposals left and right, that someone who otherwise seemed relatively frail would possess such an unyielding will.

Looking back, it shouldn’t have surprised her that much. Dorothea is still unmarried, and of the two of them she’s the one who’d wanted a spouse of some sort. Mercedes is as she ever was, while Dorothea finds both her prospects and her mental fortitude declining. She expects the war to break her, at some point, though after five years, she suspects the worst of it may have passed by now, and that she’s either completely delusional or reasonably emotionally stable. Regardless of which it is, she doubts she would be able to tell the difference. The world is as it ever was, and the only thing that’s changed about it is her.

It might have been, she thinks, a little after the start of the ball, when night had ghosted over the rest of the monastery like a wraith, and couples stole away to private corners to hold hands and whisper sweet nothings and make silly promises about wanting to be together in the face of disapproving parents or their impending deaths upon their next field assignment from the desk of a belligerent archbishop. She’d danced with Ferdinand and Hubert and Petra and Linhardt, and wheedled a dance out of Edelgard before moving onto the denizens of the other classes, and eventually found her throat parched and her legs stiff. She managed to slip away from the ballroom with a glass of wine procured from Manuela, who was keeping Seteth company while not-quite-at-her-drunkest, but close enough that she didn’t seem to mind relinquishing her half-empty glass to Dorothea while commenting on the fact that she had never seen Seteth’s ears, and wandered the courtyards in all their stony silence.

Mercedes had been alone, ambling under the porticoes as though she were taking a leisurely stroll in the dead of night, and perhaps she had been. Here was a woman who liked to tell ghost stories and had once showed up to class lacking an essential article of clothing; she seemed as though she could be comfortable anywhere at any time doing anything, up to and including the monastery graveyard. Dorothea approached her because she had wine, and wine made everything more bearable.

“Mercedes!” She smiled and waved her over. “Come talk to me before I change my mind.”

A hint of hesitation crossed Mercedes’s face before she approached her, but she returned her smile, reflected it back like a mirror, and said, “Good evening, Dorothea. What brings you here tonight?”

“Your lovely face, it seems,” she said, sipping at her glass, “and Manuela’s wine, and the phase of the moon. It drives people a little wild, doesn’t it, when it’s full like this?” She looked up. “No wonder all the couples are out. I can’t take three steps without running into one.”

“Well,” said Mercedes, “there is me.”

“There’s you,” she said, “and then there’s me, and so that makes two of us.”

“Oh,” she said, and looked a little surprised. “You aren’t suggesting that we might be one of those couples?”

“If only I could count myself so lucky,” said Dorothea, swirling around the contents of her glass. “If your heart belongs to someone other than the goddess, then that’s news to me.”

“I am quite fond of the goddess, yes,” Mercedes replied. “Although, I wouldn’t consider my relationship with her to be anywhere near romantic. The comparison is perhaps… less than accurate.”

Dorothea’s eyes went wide. “So,” she said, taking another careful sip of her wine, “you’re saying I still have a chance?”

She laughed. “You certainly hadn’t been making your interest obvious.”

Dorothea lowered her glass from her face and stared at her, and realized in that moment that she couldn’t tell whether either of them were joking or not, and, consequently, that Mercedes could flirt.

Mercedes could flirt?

A grin flickered over her face, toothy and mostly mirthless. “If you could find us an unoccupied corner somewhere, then I’d be happy to make my interest as obvious as you’d like.”

“Is this a new development, Dorothea,” Mercedes asked, “or have you simply been biding your time?”

She blinked, and then put down her wineglass on the ground, away from the walkway where they were less likely to tip it over. “All right,” she said, standing back up, “so maybe I’m just curious. Not that I would say no to a little fun—but fooling around doesn’t seem to fit your definition of what ‘fun’ is. To put it shortly…” She took a step toward Mercedes. “I thought you weren’t interested in romance?”

“Was that your impression?” Her smile had been opaque to her then, but now, Dorothea thinks, it might have been just the slightest bit amused.

“The only other explanation,” Dorothea replied, “is that you’re just as particular as I am—which is to say, that even though you claim to be interested in finding a match, no one will ever be able to satisfy you.”

“So are you looking for a lover,” she asked, “or a kindred spirit?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m looking for an answer from you that doesn’t end with another question.”

“I’m not looking to be with anyone, no,” she replied. “I have other ideas for my future in mind.”

“But that future doesn’t necessarily lack a spouse?”

“If the goddess wills it.”

She snorted, and bent down and picked up her wineglass again. “If you rely on the goddess for everything, you’re only going to find yourself disappointed.”

“She brought me to you.”

If Dorothea had been taking a drink, she would have choked on it. “How is that—”

“Related?” Mercedes took a step closer. “Call it ‘chance,’ or call it ‘divine intervention,’ but you were happy to see me just now, weren’t you?”

She looked away. “I was, until you started talking about the will of the goddess.”

“I hadn’t planned for it,” said Mercedes. “But who plans to fall in love?”

She had a point.

She still does.

“Then,” Dorothea said, “what do you see yourself doing in the future? Surely you wouldn’t leave everything up to the goddess.”

“Service.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“That’s a rather harsh assessment, don’t you think? A life spent in service to the sick and needy is one that’s hardly idle.”

“If unambitious.”

Mercedes stared at her with something like reproach, though, as with everything Mercedes did, it seemed more forgiving than that. “I never claimed to be so.”

“I suppose not.” She drained her glass. “Though you didn’t have to attend a military academy to do that.”

“You caught me.” She smiled. “Odd, isn’t it? To have a monastery and a military base in the same place?”

Her first thought was, _Edelgard_. She sounded an awful lot like Edelgard.

“I’m afraid my reasons for being here are a little more selfish than that,” Mercedes said, quietly.

“Ah,” said Dorothea. “Well, I wouldn’t say that wanting anything for yourself at all is selfish.”

“I suppose not.” She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and clasped her hands together, entwining her fingers.

Dorothea gave her a sidelong glance. She seemed reluctant to share any more, and Dorothea felt guilty for having managed to coax so much new information out of her. She turned as if to walk away, and then paused.

Mercedes had more of a spine than this, usually. She was quick to deflate swollen egos (and seemed an old hand at it on top of that, as if she’d done so countless times before), and she’d seemed very set in her ways. There was little that she appeared to be hesitant about.

“Say this…” she waved her glass around in the air, “thing that you want to happen here at the Academy actually happens. What then?”

Mercedes laughed again, running one hand against the back of the other, until it rose up to cover her mouth. “I’d be happy, of course. But that happiness comes with consequences.”

“With consequences?” Dorothea asked, amused. She leaned in a bit. “Good ones?”

“For me, yes, I think so,” she said. “But for others, well…”

“Whatever it is,” she said, leaning back and stretching, “if you want it, then you should put your whole heart into it.” She rested her hands at the back of her neck, slipping the stem of the wineglass between them. “If you keep letting other people decide what’s best for you—whether they’re the goddess, or the archbishop, or anyone else that you know—then you’re being dishonest with yourself, I think.”

“Dishonest?” she asked.

She chuckled, and shook her head, and let her hands fall to her sides. “Ignore me. I don’t know what your circumstances are. But you’ve never seemed that selfish to me, so…whatever you want is probably still worth pursuing, in spite of everything else.”

“You might be right,” she said, sad and still smiling, and that may have been when Dorothea finally thought to herself, _Ah. She’s never going to do it._ “Thank you for reminding me.”

“Reminding you to what?” Dorothea asked. “Ignore me?”

Mercedes laughed in surprise, covering her mouth in an attempt to contain herself, and Dorothea, likewise startled by how genuine her laughter sounded, grinned wryly back. “You ass,” she said, and tapped her lightly on the head with the wineglass while she was still bent over with mirth. “Is this what you’re really like?”

“Don’t say what you don’t mean,” she whispered back. “And that goes for all of it.”

* * *

So, she thinks to herself, maybe that time had been out of spite. Mercedes may have made a fool of her once (and still does, and not only her), but Dorothea had meant what she had said back then, and didn’t understand what Mercedes had meant until later, and prior to that still selfishly found herself with a bone to pick, because she couldn’t fathom the notion that they were alike in that way—that Dorothea was lying to herself about what she wanted as much as Mercedes did, that what she thought was going to make her happy really wasn’t, and that pursuing what she did want would result in consequences too agonizing to bear, so she simply ignored her own heart’s desire in favor of an attainable compromise, something that would allow her to survive, but not thrive, to live, but not flourish in doing so. If Mercedes had no future, Mercedes had implied, then neither did she. She was different, she thought. True love, marriage, happiness—she could achieve all three. She just needed to wait for the right person to come along.

And looking back, naturally, now she sees how she maybe should have noticed the flaws in her logic sooner. Maybe things would have been different, if she had. Mercedes isn’t dead, no, but that’s a little bit the problem. Mercedes _isn’t_ dead, and she _hasn’t_ changed, and the only thing that has is the fact that Dorothea is older and more self-aware and knows she was lying to herself about wanting to find true love. She would have settled for someone who wasn’t secretly (or openly) an asshole. And now everyone she knows is dying, and she isn’t interested in marriage at all. Now, the pursuit of true love seems pointlessly naive, and Mercedes is making more sense by the day. There will be no future as long as everyone keeps marching themselves to their deaths. Dorothea doesn’t even much care about winning. She just wants it all to be over. (There are ways, she knows, but not like that.)

She had thought they were different, once, but even then, a part of her knew that the more she learned about her the less the differences mattered. She would have rather been fond of her, she thinks, than to have disagreed all the time on silly, inconsequential things.

And maybe, accidentally, that’s what she eventually did.

The day before Edelgard stormed the Holy Tomb—or whatever it was called—Mercedes opened up about her brother. Dorothea could have guessed that she and Jeritza were related, from rumors and hearsay and the fact that if you tilted your head and squinted, you could make out the family resemblance. No, it didn’t make much sense that the least violence-prone student in the school would be related to one of its most notorious mass murderers, but siblings were like that, weren’t they? What else would you call an unloved, unwanted thing, if not a black sheep, or a red-headed stepchild? The term had its uses—though she wasn’t about to say such a thing over tea and cakes.

Edelgard had been acting strange, she remembers, and the whole school had been on edge. Dorothea remembers the astringency of their tea, the dregs from the bottom of Mercedes’s jar of blackberry jam, the unusually cloying sweetness of her cakes as they ate together in her room. Everything felt off. Maybe that was why she did it. Someone had to know, Dorothea supposed, in the event that she was no longer around to share it.

Mercedes’s account of her past was brief, unemotional, and to the point: she was born as the only child of Baron Martritz. The house was abolished that same year and her mother remarried to Baron Bartels, who turned out to be an abusive father and husband. A year later her mother gave birth to her brother, Emile, who also bore a Crest, and once her mother was past childbearing age they were cast out of the family and fled to Faerghus, where they spent a few years living in a church. Her mother then remarried for a second time to a merchant who’d apparently only consented to the union in the hopes that his daughter’s Crest would allow her to marry into a noble family. Meanwhile, Emile was reported to have massacred his father and siblings and then went missing, but was adopted by and became the heir of House Hrym, whose family lacked a Crest, and changed his name to Jeritza to hide his identity. Jeritza, as it turned out, was almost certainly the Death Knight, and had likely been ordered by Imperial loyalists to join the Academy in order to sabotage the Church and give them an advantage when their leader finally assumed power and declared war.

Well, she hadn’t said that last part. But by the end of the day, it would have hardly mattered.

“Do you feel responsible for his behavior?” Dorothea asked. “Is that why you’re telling me all this?”

“I don’t know how I feel,” she replied, honestly, “and that’s why I’m telling you.” She chuckled. “The ball seems so long ago, doesn’t it? So much happened in such a short period of time.”

“Your dream was to be with him,” she said, evenly. “Wasn’t it? You wanted to confirm the rumors with your own eyes.”

“I had my doubts,” she said. “But from what I know about Emile von Bartels, it really appears to be him.”

“That’s…” She blinked. “I can see why you might be reluctant to associate with someone like that, in all honesty. I never had any siblings—none that I know of, anyway—so I can only imagine. Learning that Jeritza is your brother, only to find out that he’s the Death Knight a few months later?”

“In my heart, my brother is still a good person. But in my heart, he’s only a boy.” Mercedes smiled at her. “I don’t know—perhaps he’s being manipulated, or controlled somehow—perhaps it wasn’t his choice to be here, doing these awful things. But even so, it’s irresponsible of me to let him stay that way.”

“You would kill him?”

“I have to stop him, by whatever means necessary. It’s more blood on my hands if I don’t.”

Dorothea sipped her tea thoughtfully. “They say the Empire is preparing for war.”

“That would be a natural consequence of all that’s been happening, wouldn’t it?” she replied, thoroughly unsurprised.

“Say you and I ended up on opposite sides.” She put down her teacup. “Would you consider it your duty to kill me then?”

“That does seem a very real possibility, doesn’t it,” she said. “I don’t know.” She looked at her. “I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t want to. But I have found that I am oftentimes more capable than I would like to believe. I would be sad, were I ordered to kill you. But I don’t know if I could. Not until it happens.”

“That… is a refreshingly honest answer, coming from you,” said Dorothea. “I thought I would enjoy it more than I did.”

“I don’t think killing is a particularly enjoyable topic, for what that’s worth.”

“Well, if I’d known that it was you who’d be my executioner,” she murmured, “I think I’d offer my neck up to the gallows anyway.”

“Me?” she asked. “Why?”

“Because a world in which we were forced to kill each other isn’t one worth living in.” When she noticed Mercedes staring at her, she went on, “I didn’t have that many reasons to want to continue to survive, in the first place. And I’m not seeing any more in the near future.”

“Come now, Dorothea,” she chided, reaching over and patting her on the wrist. “Don’t talk like that.” She sounded like someone’s mother—Annette’s, maybe. Certainly not Dorothea’s own.

“The world’s a terrible place, Mercedes.” She pushed her teacup and saucer off to the side, and placed her head down on the table. “Look at what it did to your brother. Look at what it did to you. And when this war breaks out, and if we survive, and once it’s all finally over, we’ll look back and wonder to ourselves whether any of what happened was really worth it.”

“Will you fight for the Empire,” asked Mercedes, “if it comes to that?”

“I don’t want to fight for anyone.” She thought about it. “But it would be madness to cut ties with Edelgard. She’s… She’s the Emperor now, I think, actually. I think she was crowned recently—some of the students were talking about it—wait…” Dorothea fell silent. Then she sat up and looked at Mercedes.

They exchanged glances.

“Oh, _fuck_. Mercedes.” She pushed herself out of her seat and stood up. “There’s no way this could be a coincidence. It’s her. It’s that lying, scheming bitch… She’s in on it!”

“The Empire is going to declare war, then,” said Mercedes, and she sounded as certain of it as Dorothea felt. “After all this time, they’re looking to take the rest of Fódlan back.”

Dorothea covered her mouth. “The professor is supposed to… No. I have to—what am I going to say?” She faltered. “No one’s going to believe me. And even if I did, I don’t have the power to change anything, anyway. It’s still going to happen.”

“I…” Mercedes started gathering the half-empty saucers and cups on the table. “I suppose my question is no longer hypothetical.”

“Faerghus is going to get squashed like a grape.” Dorothea stared at her in horror. “You realize that, don’t you? It’s cold, it’s barren, and the Church is already compromised—there’s no way. If Edelgard has really managed to unite the Empire, and her coronation wasn’t just for show… No. Everything points to this being the Empire’s doing. I can understand why she wants to do it, but it’s crazy. We all knew the Insurrection wasn’t going to last, but, well…”

“I’m sure she isn’t doing this only for herself,” said Mercedes, drawing away from the table. “The Empire has been in a state of decline for years. Someone was going to take advantage of the situation, eventually. Let’s hope that the right person did.”

“Then…” Dorothea looked at her.

“It’s unkind, isn’t it? To force me to choose between my friends.”

“Mercedes, I could never…”

“I’m not as strong as you might think.”

“That’s the last thing I want to hear from you right now,” she said, and laughed.

“Do you remember what you told me on the night of the ball?” Mercedes asked. “You said that my dreams were still worth pursuing, in spite of what I thought about them.”

“You…” She wiped tears from her eyes. “That’s unfair. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that that’s what you meant. We don’t know if he’s…” She sucked in a breath. “What if he doesn’t remember you? What if he’s gone mad?”

“He didn’t seem that way when I talked to him,” Mercedes remarked. “Though he did appear to be avoiding me. It’s selfish, isn’t it? To want to be together again? It’s been so long.”

“It’s not selfish,” Dorothea said, but she was crying. “You can’t decide these things on a whim.”

“I’d been thinking about it for a long time, actually,” said Mercedes. “What I would do were we forced to choose sides. And I decided that it didn’t matter where we lived, so long as we could be together.”

Dorothea covered her face with her hands and sobbed. “That’s not what I meant!”

Mercedes rubbed her back in slow, gentle circles. “I know,” she said quietly. “But you were right. There are good people in the Empire, many of whom I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting—and I’ll have you, won’t I?”

Dorothea pulled her hands away from her face, and groaned when Mercedes held out a handkerchief. “I’m not worth it,” she said, wiping her nose. “You’ll learn that much soon enough.”

Mercedes let her hand slide off of Dorothea’s back. “Are you upset that I took your advice?”

“I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about at the time,” said Dorothea, holding the edge of the used handkerchief between her thumb and forefinger, “so, yes, a little bit.”

“Just place it in the clothes basket over there.”

Dorothea plucked off the cover of the basket and dropped it in. Then she went straight back to her seat and fell into it. “You’re probably never going to see them again, but… You liked them. Your classmates. I just can’t…” She sighed and leaned back into her chair, covering her eyes with her forearm. “This better not be about me, because for Sothis’s sake, Mercedes, I am so not worth it.”

“It’s not,” said Mercedes, and Dorothea tried very hard not to interpret that as a lie.

“Those people were my friends, too,” said Dorothea. “I don’t want to hurt any of them. I hope I’m wrong.” She knew she wasn’t. “I hope none of this ever comes to pass.”

“Dorothea,” Mercedes said, and from the sound of her voice Dorothea realized that she was standing right next to her.

She pulled her forearm from her face and stared up at her. “Yes?” She felt embarrassed, for some reason. Mercedes was standing very close.

One hand reached out to circle Dorothea’s wrist. Her mouth wobbled. “Nothing,” she said. She squeezed her wrist. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” Then she let go, leaving behind a ring of heat where her hand had once been.

Dorothea tried to read her expression, and realized that she couldn’t.

The next day, when she did see Mercedes, it was in the hollowed-out fortress north of the monastery under the banner of the Adrestian Empire, and when her heart fluttered in her chest, she couldn’t tell whether it was from fear, or from hope, or from love.

* * *

Maybe, when she thought, _This_ _woman has no future,_ she was actually thinking about herself. Maybe “this love has no future” would be more accurate, because it didn’t, and it still doesn’t. Even five years later when Mercedes and a handful of others had traveled to the monastery following news of the professor’s rebirth into the world, and Dorothea was completely beyond words to see her again, she wasn’t thinking about what would happen next. She still can’t. It’s only been a few months, but with the professor’s help, they’ve been making progress. They’ve conquered Leicester. They fought back a surprise attack by the Church on the monastery. They’ve been cordial, Dorothea thinks. Mercedes may have cut her hair and changed her clothes, but really, that’s all about her that’s changed. And it’s been odd to see her and Jeritza interact. She saw her wipe his face once in the dining hall, and for a moment she thought she could see the nine-year-old boy Mercedes remembered him as. Edelgard moons over the professor practically every chance she gets.

It’s been odd to have them back. It feels different—not the deaths, not the fighting, not their goals, not even their strategies, really—but the atmosphere has changed. Mercedes was called back home after the monastery fell, presumably by her father to protect her from all the fighting, but she found her way back somehow. The professor still knows what to do in every situation, and it’s unsettling. Edelgard is still losing her mind, but she’s trying harder not to. This may not be happening. She might be delirious. Maybe, five years ago, she didn’t convince a woman living in Faerghus to betray her friends and fight for the Empire. She looks happy to be around her brother, at least. Dorothea hopes he was worth it.

They don’t talk about the past. They rarely have time for each other, anymore, and their friendship had been brief, to start. Dorothea was acquainted with nearly everyone at the academy, and she’d had a good head for names—enough to recognize when someone she knew was dead. They don’t talk about what happened during the ball, and they don’t talk about the fact that Dorothea figured out that Edelgard was going to declare a war on the Church and forced Mercedes to admit she was joining them. They don’t talk about what any of that meant, even though it means exactly what’s happening now: Mercedes is here, and her classmates aren’t. They’ll be attacking the Kingdom soon, which means some of them might be dead in another few weeks or so. If either of them do have a future, it’s not one that she can imagine. She can barely see past the bodies. She can barely see past tomorrow at all.

If you wanted to steal a moment of Mercedes’s time, then you went to church with her. That was an unspoken rule, of sorts. Even though Edelgard and Hubert acted like they would burst into flame the second they stepped past the threshold, they understood that. If they wanted her to share her insight and her expertise, then they indulged her. The cathedral is much more empty nowadays, and they only hold services once a week, as opposed to every day under Rhea, but Dorothea thinks that she prefers the quiet. If you wanted to see her, then you agreed to a time and you went. If Dorothea wanted to see her, then she would have to pick a time and then go.

It’s empty, now. Dorothea’s footsteps echo through the building. There’s a pile of rubble in the center where Edelgard neglected to have it rebuilt (out of pettiness, she’s certain), but it looks no worse for the wear than it did five years ago, otherwise. The windows didn’t break and the walls are intact, and the only thing that’s missing is a large chunk out of the roof.

Dorothea sits in one of the pews close to the main entrance and leans back to stare at the flaking paint on the ceiling. They’d had choir practice here, once upon a time. She’d join when they were missing people or when she was bored, or Manuela was substituting for the choir director and she needed an excuse to spend time with her. Mercedes’s singing voice, if she remembered correctly, sounded completely different from her speaking voice.

She might hear it again, if she’s lucky.

“I didn’t realize you were so excited to see me.”

“I’m always excited to see you,” Dorothea lies, or maybe she isn’t. It’s getting harder to tell, nowadays.

Mercedes hurries her way inside from the western entrance. What on earth she was doing over there, Dorothea chooses not to ask. “You’re here early,” she says, and sits down next to her on the pew, leaving maybe half a meter between them.

Dorothea eyes the empty space warily.

“Too far?” Mercedes asks.

“You’re too cheerful,” Dorothea says, instead, “for someone who’s going to be killing her friends.”

She frowns. “Is that what you wanted to see me about?”

“No.” Her heart does flip-flops in her chest, like a dying fish. Is this what infatuation is supposed to feel like? Maybe she’s having a heart attack. “I just missed you.” It comes out surprisingly easily. “Well, I missed talking to you over something other than exposed organs and bloody limbs.”

“Oh.” She smiles wide. “I missed you too.”

Suddenly she wishes they weren’t having this conversation in a church. “Was it worth it?” she asks. “Jeritza? You might be on the winning side for sure, by now, but that doesn’t come without a cost.”

“It’s a little too late for regrets,” she says, and her eyes flicker up and down Dorothea’s form—over her body—like she’s searching for something.

She stretches and sits up in the pew. “Why do you look so happy?”

“Because you’re here. I was afraid you wouldn’t be.”

She raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve changed.”

Dorothea swallows. “Did I?”

“Well, you all have. Ferdinand is more focused, and Caspar is quieter, and Bernadetta doesn’t hide from people as often anymore. I see Linhardt is more serious about his Crest research. And Edelgard…” She pauses. “I suppose she’s finally accepted her role in what’s to come.”

“I think I’ve become more unhappy,” Dorothea says quietly. “It’s not a change that I like about myself. It’s different now, but we spent five years in this horrible, tedious hell—I don’t understand how Edelgard does it. Over and over again.” She groans and runs a hand over her face. “Everyone’s changed because they had to. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t is still here. It’s been so long, and even though Edelgard has promised that this is the final stretch—that this assault on Arianrhod and then on the capital will be our last—it’s so hard to believe. It’s been forever, Mercedes.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You weren’t here, and I’m glad you weren’t, because I wouldn’t wish this experience on my most hated enemies.”

Mercedes places her hands in her lap, like she used to. “Would you like to share?”

“Absolutely not.” She lets the hand drop from her face. “No. I’m not going to tell you how many times Edelgard failed before we got here.”

“Then we won’t.” She sits up, eager. “We could pray.”

Dorothea stiffens at that. “Are you just… relieved to know that I wanted to see you? Is that it? Because I remember—”

Mercedes looks at her.

Has it really been that long?

“You would have done it anyway, wouldn’t you? Even if I hadn’t said anything. You would have joined the Empire of your own accord.”

“You don’t feel guilty, Dorothea,” she says, “do you?”

“You said it wasn’t about me,” says Dorothea. “I remember that very clearly. I remember hoping it wasn’t. All I did was…”

“I had been talking to Ferdinand, before it all happened. But of course I wouldn’t tell him about Emile. I was fond of him, but I trusted you more.”

“Why?”

“Because when I had a difficult decision to make, you were honest with me. I told you that I was selfish, and you told me that I wasn’t. I hope you don’t regret what you said to me, on the night of the ball. I wanted to be with Emile. I truly did. And if you hadn’t said anything, then perhaps I wouldn’t be.”

“You would have been with the Church,” says Dorothea. “Or with the Kingdom.”

“They’re all good people.” She rubs her hands together. “I wish we didn’t have to hurt them.”

“Say that we do win,” says Dorothea. “What will you do then? I doubt that the Church is going to be… you know… the same.”

“I’m worried about the children here,” she says, animatedly. “I might open up an orphanage.”

“Oh,” she replies. “That’s nice.” That’s not what she means. It’s more than nice. But it’s just like her to think to do that. “I might have to join you.”

Her eyes go wide. “Pardon?”

“I mean… Goddess, what do I mean?” she mutters under her breath. “I admire you for having the strength to do that. Children are difficult—orphans especially so. Ask Manuela.” She winks. “She might know a thing or two about that.”

“Ah…” Mercedes pauses, and thinks. “You were orphaned, were you not? I’d heard of the rumors, but I paid them hardly any mind.”

She grins. “You’re great with children. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“It’s a lot of work, for certain.”

“It is, but you love work. You’re always busy. I felt like I was stealing you away from other people whenever I wanted a moment of your time.”

Mercedes furrows her brow. “That wasn’t at all the case.”

“I’m the jealous type, I suppose.”

“How could you be jealous,” she smiles, “when I’m not even yours yet?”

That sends a plume of heat straight from her chest up to her face. She doesn’t have the time for this. Neither of them do; why are they flirting?

She covers her face with her hand. “Was that your plan all along? Open up an orphanage so I’d feel compelled to help you out with it?”

“Not at all. I didn’t even know you were an orphan until you confirmed it with me just now. But it makes me happy to know that you think that I’d be able to care for them. It’s different, looking after the ones at the monastery versus raising them for years.”

“I can’t believe you have plans,” she says. “Of course you would.” She looks away. “I’m not… I mean, I could go back to the opera, but I hadn’t planned to spend my entire life there.”

“I thought you wanted a spouse,” says Mercedes. “Or did that change?”

There’s a way to do both, she thinks. Technically, they can both get what they want.

“No,” she says quietly, “it hasn’t. Well,” she pauses, ”I’ve stopped looking. But I haven’t stopped wanting one.”

“You’ll have your chance once this is all over. Unless you’ve already found someone that you want?” Mercedes looks at her intently.

“There’s no one.” Dorothea forces the words out.

“Well, whoever it is, they’ll be very lucky to have you.” She smiles again, and takes Dorothea’s hand and places it between her own. “You’ve been a wonderful friend, Dorothea, and you’re deserving of all of the happiness the world has to offer. I hope you find the person that you’re looking for.”

_Maybe I already have._

She wets her lips. Mercedes is notorious for not paying attention to things that she should and concentrating wildly on others that she shouldn’t. Dorothea knows that she knows. Or at least, that she suspects, because Dorothea is nothing if not obvious. She hasn’t been taking advantage, because that would be rude and horrible and nasty and she isn’t any of those things. Mercedes doesn’t owe her anything. But is it she who’s waiting for Mercedes? Or is it Mercedes who’s waiting for her? Is she reading too much into the flirting? Is Mercedes like that with everyone, or only with her? Does she not understand women? Is that it? Is that why she hasn’t been able to find a spouse? Is she just that bad with them?

Mercedes is pulling her hands away, and then the moment is over.

“It’s funny.” She giggles into her hand. “You say that you’re the jealous type, but when I think of the person you might end up with, I feel my heart sink a little, too.”

“No,” she says. “Really?”

Mercedes blushes and looks away, and her mouth is open, but no words are coming out. Dorothea thinks of a million things she could do right then, and doesn’t do any of them.

“I don’t see why you should be alone,” she says, but it’s obvious that that isn’t what she really wants to say. “I wish I could do more.”

“More…” Dorothea studies her face, and watches her shrink into the pew, “how?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

So she wasn’t misinterpreting anything. That’s good to know. Now what?

 _Useless_ , Dorothea thinks, and she doesn’t know why Mercedes is being so shy, but she’s been hesitant before. She thinks about her own suitors, and how terrible they all were; hell, they’ve probably shared a few. She’s certain they’re interchangeable in some people’s eyes.

“It’s not like you to be so nervous,” Dorothea says, her voice low. She’s leaning but not really leaning over her, teetering on the edge of her personal space. They’re close, but they could be closer.

This is a church. Maybe Mercedes feels dirty.

No, that thought really doesn’t help.

She imagines Mercedes pushing her away and running out of the cathedral like a scandalized nun. Or they could end up making out in here—she wouldn’t be opposed to that, as long it remained empty, and it usually did. She can’t help where her thoughts go next.

“Is this what you wanted to see me about?” she asks, again.

Dorothea breathes out a sigh, and they’re so close that her breath stirs Mercedes’s bangs. She sits up and away from her. “No,” she says honestly, and then she thinks back to what Mercedes had told her all those years ago. “But who plans to fall in love?”

* * *

They fool around in Dorothea’s room, which is a more appropriate location for doing that than a church. Dorothea is impatient and Mercedes is clumsy and it takes them a while to find something that works, but after so long it hardly bothers her. She smells like star anise and lavender and something earthy and if she keeps pulling away then it’s Dorothea’s fault for wanting her so badly and for so long and treating her precisely like it.

But Mercedes _wants_ her, and it gratifies her to learn that even Mercedes gets horny sometimes. She’s sensitive everywhere and makes little noises when they kiss, and Dorothea has to touch her in neutral places because every time Mercedes makes a sound she wants to fuck her and knows she shouldn’t. Mercedes’s skin is flushed when they finally part.

It’s a lovely shade of pink.

“You’re pretty like this too, you know,” Dorothea says between breaths. Her imagination is still running wild. She doesn’t know what face to make, and the results are probably horrifying.

Mercedes runs a hand through her hair, which is mussed after all their fun, naturally—it’s thick and coarse (where else could it be like that, she thinks), and it doesn’t feel how Dorothea imagined it would, to the point that she wonders how Mercedes is able to manage it at all. Her expression is complicated. When her lips part, Dorothea fixates on them.

She’s beautiful.

“I’m a little worried,” she admits.

“No, shit,” says Dorothea, and covers Mercedes’s hand with her own. “What isn’t there to be worried about?” Edelgard says it’ll only be a few more months, but in her mind Dorothea is planning for the war to last a few more years. She can’t believe anything Edelgard tells her at this point. It’s impossible to think that this could all finally be over in such a short period of time.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ she thinks, _and if I die tomorrow, then at least I’ll die happy._

“You say that, but you’re smiling,” says Mercedes.

Dorothea touches her mouth. She is smiling. She runs her tongue along her lower lip, and watches Mercedes watch her.

“Because…” she says. Because what? “I don’t know. Because you’re looking at me like that. Like you want me.”

Mercedes looks down and turns red again.

“You’re usually so composed, and you’re so good at hiding what you really think—it’s… it’s funny,” she giggles, “to see you so flustered over something as unremarkable as sex. I know people can be weird about it. I’m not saying I’m surprised. But if we… I mean… Anything can happen, but if we do manage to end up together after all of this, somehow, I…” She looks away. “I’m not only interested in your body, but I do want to make you feel good. If you’d let me. Eventually.”

“I know,” says Mercedes, and now it’s Dorothea’s turn to blush. “You’re not very good at hiding it.”

“Ah, um,” she brushes a lock of hair behind her ear, pressing herself against the wall by her bed, “I hope this doesn’t go against your credo, or whatever.”

Mercedes laughs, and it sounds prettier than ever. “Pardon? My ‘credo?’”

“Well, you are the religious type—”

Mercedes takes the hand that was tangled in her hair. “Dorothea, my choice of partner has nothing to do with my religious beliefs.” She kisses her knuckles and smiles at her. “Surely you must realize that by now.”

She covers her face with her free hand. “I want to make you orgasm, like, right now.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to do that.”

She peeks at her through her fingers. “Really?”

“Well,” she clarifies, “not right now.”

“Then I won’t pressure you.”

A little tension leaves Mercedes’s shoulders right then, and she pretends she doesn’t see it.

“You’re not going to ask me when I knew?”

She pulls her hand away from her face. “When you knew what?”

“That… Well, that I wanted you.” She says the words oddly solemnly, and Dorothea can’t help but read a little regret into them.

“All right,” replies Dorothea, “when was that?”

“I convinced my parents to move back to the Empire,” she begins, “and spent a few years in the merchant business following the start of the war. Even though I wasn’t there, I learned a lot about the movements of the Imperial army just by talking to our clients. You can’t very well hide an army, after all. And I told my mother about Emile, and about how he was in the… employ of the Emperor, fighting in the war. I’d wanted to leave sooner than I did, actually, but one thing led to another, and… I was stuck.” She exhales. “I realized I didn’t want to fight. I’d heard the stories, about the deadlock between the Empire and the Kingdom, how political maneuvering within the Alliance prevented them from supporting one side or the other, and how the Empire’s long-term strategy seemed to be a war of attrition.”

Dorothea laughs dryly. “Who knows whether it would have worked out, though I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

“I questioned my decision to support the Empire, even as we lived in it. My memories of my time there… as you may recall… are not very fond. I owe a great deal to a small chapel on the outskirts of Fhirdiad, and it was through the Royal School of Sorcery that I was able to meet Annette.” She pauses, then, for a long time, toying with Dorothea’s fingers. “I kept in touch with her and a few others. I thought I could stay out of the fighting for a while longer, or perhaps stay neutral—I’m not a fighter, after all. I only know a little black magic, and I hate to use it.”

“Go on,” Dorothea says.

“I’d had my doubts about Edelgard, too. Not that I didn’t believe her—I seriously doubt that she could have started this war for profit or personal gain—but I doubted… that the system could possibly change, under her rule or that of anyone else. Nothing would have changed if the Church won, either, but I owed my life to them. I thought back to what I had said to you, about joining the Empire, and to the oath I had sworn to Edelgard before we began our assault on the monastery, and to my brother, now a powerful general by the name of Jeritza von Hrym, the Death Knight. There’s a reason it took me five years,” she laughs, and kisses Dorothea’s fingers again, “because I didn’t have the courage… You cried the day I told you, and Annette—I lied to her, because I was lonely and wanted to keep in touch; she didn’t know I was on the other side of battlefield that day, and I just…” she squeezes her hand, “I wanted it all. I wanted the Empire to win and the Church to stay intact and my brother to survive and to stay friends with Annette. For a while, I lived in a fantasy of my own making. I was completely in denial of what I had done.”

Dorothea waits, watches.

Mercedes leans in, then, and for a moment Dorothea thinks she’s going to kiss her, but she doesn’t. She bends, presses her forehead into the crook of Dorothea’s neck and shoulder. “We should have left together, you know,” she whispers. “In the aftermath of that attack. When Rhea transformed and the whole monastery was falling to pieces. I should have found you.” Her breaths are audible. “We could have run. Left it all behind.”

Dorothea swallows.

“But it’s too late for that now,” she says, and giggles and presses a kiss into her neck. “Now I have you and Emile. But I never stopped thinking about that,” she murmurs into her skin, “and once I had heard you were with them, I had to go.”

“Me?” asks Dorothea. Her voice sounds foreign to her own ears.

“I was worried about you,” she says.

“You’re kidding. That’s why you came back?”

“You’re the last person who wants to be here, Dorothea.” She pulls away so they can see each other, and Dorothea already misses the contact. “Why are you here? Certainly not to find a partner. Are you afraid of the consequences of deserting? Do you truly believe in Edelgard’s cause?”

“No,” says Dorothea, “no, nothing like that. I just…” She fumbles for words. “This is… where I belong, right now. I’m close to the people who are making the most crucial decisions. I can influence Edie, if I try. And when I’m not doing that, I can… I can look after the sick, or entertain the children, or I can wash the sheets or tend to the gardens—I can do something. And doing something is better than doing nothing. Because I can’t turn a blind eye to everything that’s happening around us. Even if it’s only a little, I can… I can be there for someone who needs me. I can at least do that.”

Mercedes smiles, and then leans in, and Dorothea can feel the curve of her mouth when their lips press together.

Mercedes runs her hands through her hair when they kiss, and when they part, she looks up at her and smiles again. “Look at you,” she says, brushing Dorothea’s hair away from her face. She tilts her chin. “How could you ever tell me you weren’t worth it?”

They kiss a little more, and then it’s dark outside and Mercedes stands up and says she has to go back to work.

Dorothea laughs, lying on her side on the bed. “Leaving me high and dry now, are you?”

“On the contrary, I believe I’ve given you more than enough today.” Mercedes’s hands are folded at her waist. They rest a little above her crotch, and Dorothea doesn’t even pretend that she isn’t fantasizing about her touching herself.

“I’m only joking.” She smiles, and she feels warmth well up in her chest and spread through her limbs and then all over her body. “Tomorrow, then?”

Is this what the future looks like?

“You could join me,” Mercedes says, but Dorothea couldn’t. She’s completely emotionally spent. If she so much as sees an open wound, she’ll cry.

“I’ll stay here,” she says, “and keep the bed warm for you.”

“You want me to come back?” she asks. “Here?”

“I know it isn’t much—”

“Here?” Mercedes asks, again, and looks at her.

Damn this woman and her mind games.

“Anywhere is fine, too,” she says, finally, shutting her eyes. “Don’t make me say it.”

“It’s only a dormitory.”

She rolls onto her stomach and props herself up on the bed. “Then come live with me, dammit.”

Mercedes presses herself against the door, and giggles into her hand, and when she doesn’t move to leave, Dorothea stands up and pins her to it. She complains about being late for her shift and makes unflattering comparisons between Dorothea and Sylvain and kisses her again and again.

Stolen time, Dorothea thinks. But it’s completely worth it.


End file.
